Darrington WA Shooting Pit

[Highland Lofts]

Troy the pit is so wide where would you start digging? Then when the powers to be start letting ammo become available the pit will be to.busy to dig it up.
It would be nice if the target stands were only in a couple of places, BUT they place them everywhere and they do dig the banks out to repair the forest service roads.
I might try to sive some for lead & copper. I want to take a round point shovel and a bunch of plastic bucket to fill up with sand & gravel to dump in pot holes on the way out.

What size of screen do you think for sifting the gravel?


If you are up to talking on the phone call me in ten/fifteen minutes, i have to replentish my amber fluid.

 

[troy fairweather]

Troy the pit is so wide where would you start digging? Then when the powers to be start letting ammo become available the pit will be to.busy to dig it up.
It would be nice if the target stands were only in a couple of places, BUT they place them everywhere and they do dig the banks out to repair the forest service roads.
I might try to sive some for lead & copper. I want to take a round point shovel and a bunch of plastic bucket to fill up with sand & gravel to dump in pot holes on the way out.

What size of screen do you think for sifting the gravel?


If you are up to talking on the phone call me in ten/fifteen minutes, i have to replentish my amber fluid.

Depends on how the bank is and if it's more sand or small stones, I'd start with 1/8" mesh and make a frame to fit in too a wheelbarrow . Sand and small stuff will fall in the wheelbarrow and lead and jackets should stay on the screen, you can normally see where they shoot into the bank. I'd dig a foot or so in and scoop from the ground to chest height.

 

[CoalTrain49]

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You have get to the pit from Sweede Haven Road by way of the 18 Road. We took the three grandkids to that bridge you are talking about last summer yo get wet & cool off.
The bridge we camp by is farther East on 435th. That lityle section by the high tension wire electric next to the sub-staion is private property and they put up a gate. We use to by pass the gate by way of the old railroad bed, but they put them concrete jersey barriers across the old railroad bed so you have to go in on the Sweede Haven Road, take the right on to the 18 Forest Service Road for about 3 or so miles then take the left onyo the 445th Road and that takes you to the shooting pit. A half a mile or more down the road past the pit takes you to the bridge across the Stilly river where we camp.
Beautiful place plus there is trout in the river.
When ever we camp there I always have garbage & soda/ beer cans to pick up. Last June we camped there for my grandsons birthday. Half a bag of soiled diapers and threr bags of regular garbage some azzwipe left in the fire pit we got a fire going.

Got it. The last time I was in there the gate near the sub station was open but that was a long time ago. The road wasn't that great either. People used to fish for summer steelhead on the river around there. I knew a guy who could catch those on a fly but he was gifted. I've been on most of those creeks and rivers while working up there and seen some very large steelhead, never caught one though. Mostly I was in the area working or hunting grouse. I had keys to most of those locked gates through DNR or timber company connections.

 

[Old Dog]

Guys, I'm thinking we should have a Western Washington THR shoot this summer.

 

[troy fairweather]

Ya there's probably a dozen of you guys close.

 

[Highland Lofts]

Last summer I organized a clean up day and had guys from Northwest Firearms and WaGuns forums come up and we totally cleaned up the lower pit.
I think eight guys came and it only took about two & a hslf hours.
I will be setting another clean up day on a Saturday in May. If enough guys show up we can get both pits totally cleaned up. I provide coke, sprite & water on ice. Budweiser on ice for when we get done.
Last year we had a full size pickup truck load of garbage. I was going to go back up Sundey morning with my F250 to load up the trash & take it to the transfer station and a guy shooting in the upper pit voluntered to huall it away. We offered him the cash for the dump fee and he said he would pay for it out of his pocket for his share of helping out.
This year I will have my F250 with a set of side boards to haul the garbage.

Guys, I'm thinking we should have a Western Washington THR shoot this summer.

If you guys want to get together we can make it happen. How many of you are interested?
One of my friends has a electric (battery operated) clay pigeon thrower I can borrow. I have some steel targets. Eggs are fun to shoot, so are golf balls, hardball baseballs, jar lids hanging on a string.
It would be a fun day and we could do a BBQ down at the river afterwards and any one interested can camp out there. There is plenty of trees on the ground that can be cut up for a camp fire.

 

[Highland Lofts]

We will be going up to the pit in a few hours, we are taking the grandkids to the beach over on Camano Island to look for some drift wood to use for a small project. When we get back home we will load up and head up to the pit.

 

[Highland Lofts]

We left for the pit at 3:30 and stayed until 8:15. Mason got to shoot the AK and the Ruger 77/22 and ride his mini bike for awhile.
I picked up about three gallons of steel rifle & pistol cases, a bucket of larger steel garbagr and a bunch of other large steel items.


Tried to screen for bullets but it is useless there. To much of a area to shoot into and lots of rocks. I sifted five screens and didn't find one bullet.



I loaded up a bunch of buckets with gravel from the pit and filled in two pot holes then went back and reloaded the bucket and filled in two more pot hole, two down and a thousand more to go.


I love that area up there. We will start doing over nights as soon as the weather gets a little warmer.